The biography of Muhammad is the biography of a man who sought God and found Him in the experience of the divine summons; it is also the story of the Prophet of Mecca who assembled around him a community of believers; and finally, it is the story of the politician of Medina who founded Islamic theocracy. It is the story of a triumph, but before the years of fulfilment there stretched a long road of conflicts, setbacks and struggles. The leaders of the Quraysh, the Bedouin tribe who had become sedentary in Mecca and taken control of the city, the tribe to which Muhammad himself also belonged, opposed his cause and defended their way of life with increasingly repressive measures. After the successful emigration to Medina there followed a long series of military encounters, and bitter disappointment when the Jewish tribes refused to recognise him as the spokesman of their own God. The Koran is not only theophany and law; it is also a faithful mirror of this road to God, of the struggles of a man who seeks, goes astray and despairs, who disputes with God, is put back on the right way and consoled by Him and who corrects and justifies himself. The great themes of the Koran can be seen as reflections of this personality (Source: Islam, A Historical Introduction).
Dawn of Islam: From Ignorance to Knowledge
